When I woke up I realized for the first time in weeks I hadn't some sort of weird nightmare that I forgot in the morning and left me with an uncomfortable feeling all day. In fact, the last night I stayed over at Dylan's it didn't happen too. Huh. I guess this was a sign I was less stressed or something. I had fallen asleep facing outward and sat up, glancing around outside at the frosted windows and the shining sun. I had a slight moment of panic when I remembered school, then smiled as I realized part of running away was not going to school anymore. Joy.

    "Sorry." Dylan mumbled, rolling over. "It got kind of cold overnight."

    "I like it cold." I assured.

    He blinked up at me, nodding. "Mm hm, figured. Me too."

    Of course. He was blue, blue people naturally aligned with briskness. Dylan sat up and rubbed his face, his hair was a wild blue mess and I think I noticed for the first time the slight brush of freckles on his cheeks. All in all, not a morning person.

    "I say we get into a new set of clothes, then find a gas station and fuel up with both gas and food. Then we head for Oregon." He offered.

    I nodded. "Right the P.O. box."

    Then I smiled, because even if it wasn't top surgery, a binder was pretty darn close. I could wait to stop slouching over every time I went out in public. I had a horrible posture because of it.

    "Crap." Dylan's hand went to his chest. "Ah man. I got so caught up in last night's shenanigans I forgot to take mine off. Golly, no wonder my back hurts."

    "I'll allow you to get changed first then." I rolled my eyes and clicked open the back of the car. "Do I have to be the one to tell you to take a break or-"

    "Oh no I'll take a break...um... you think I could borrow your hoodie again?" He sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

    "Of course. By all means keep it. I've got tons."

    I guess he pictured that in his head or something because he smiled equally as sheepishly when I closed the back door back over him. A few seconds later he appeared, clad in new shorts and a dark blue MCR hoodie. Then I changed, and we were off down the road.

    "This whole place is so bizarre at this hour." Dylan muttered as we watched an employee refill a slushy machine in a local gas station. "I've never seen those things filled up before. I think we have to get one now."

    I looked over from the wide array of "breakfast" item, from which I think I was going to choose a bag of Cheetos. "Huh, true."

    We kindly waited until he was done refilling it before acquiring our slushees. It was around nine in the morning but Dylan had convinced me this was a good idea. He got a blue one (again, fitting) and I got cherry, lemon, and raspberry but stacked it up so it made the pansexual flag, because I'm cheesy like that.

    "Hey look." I turned to show Dylan.

    I glanced over to see he was already at the counter, and there was pack of cigarettes on the counter next to his slushee and our snacks. I frowned.

    He laughed. "You're pan? Nice."

    I pointed at the pack. "You smoke?"

    The money left his hands before I could really stop it. Dylan's smiled faltered upon my question. We grabbed our stuff and left the building.

    "Are you going to answer my question?" I asked him again, trying my best to look as disapproving as possible.

    He shrugged uncomfortably. "It's not a big deal."

    "Yeah it is." I insisted.

    "Okay, how so?"

    I gaped at him. "It's unhealthy, you're killing your lungs and-"

    I cut myself off. You're changing your colors. I had never actually told anyone that I did that. Plus, I didn't want to because it was kind of embarrassing.

    Dylan just shrugged again. "Well, I don't care about my body so-"

    "Well that's just stupid." I replied, still indignant. "That's not an excuse to smoke, that's something you say when you're having a bad day and eat like a whole carton of ice cream. Or if you're running away and buying junk food for breakfast at a seven-eleven at nine in the morning."

    The metaphor made him huff in amusement. "Atticus it's just one pack, okay? One pack won't hurt me."

    I screamed internally but let it go. I just felt annoying now, and I wanted this day to go well. He slipped one out and put it between his lips, then pulled out his lighter and breathed in. I watched his eyes close and a look a peace drift over him as he breathed out. Great.

    "Okay." He started, leaning back against the car as it filled up with gas. "Besides Oregon and my plans, you got anywhere you want to go?"

    I leaned back next to him and tried to ignore the rancid scent of smoke. "Uh... I want to go see my dad."

    Dylan actually coughed out a bit, which just made me curl my fingers into my fists. I was worried about him.

    "That's new." He raised his eyebrows. "Why?"

    "I want to see if he'll take me in. He lives in California, aren't they supposed to be more liberal there or something?" I explained.

    Dylan nodded, starring off into the distance. I might have been imaging it but there might have been more of a glaze to his brown eyes now. "Makes sense. I mean why not? Let's do it."

    "Yeah?"

    "Yeah," he agreed, then laughed. "California huh? Isn't that place kind of infamous for drugs?"

    He waved his cigarette around and I frowned, unamused. "Very funny."

    "I'm not kidding. Isn't the state flower a poppy? They totally make drugs out of that." He giggled to himself.

    He seemed to pick up on just how uncomfortable I was and sighed. "Okay I'll put it away while I'm driving okay?"

    I squinted, then sighed passively aggressively. "Fine."

    "Speaking of I just started this so you're driving first." He reached for the shotgun door.

    "Dylan!" I squawked. "Not while you're in the car, period. Also, I can't...drive."

    He looked up, surprised. "You don't know how to drive?"

    "No, I never learned." I admittedly, shoving my hand into my pockets uncomfortably.

    "How old are you?"

    "Seventeen."

    "Atticus!"

    "Dylan!" I snarked back.

    He put his hands up in defense. "Okay sorry, didn't mean to step on your tail. It's fine I'll just drive then."

    He sighed again and dropped his cigarette into one of the receptacles nearby. Then turned back towards me and gestured to me.

    "Happy?"

    Oh great, now I just felt guilty. "Yes, thank you."

    We climbed in, and Dylan pulled the car out of there and onto the open road. I crunched down on my junk food. There was something liberating about this decision. Cheetos at ten o'clock in the morning. That's probably an aesthetic.

    "You really never learned to drive?" Dylan asked in a much nicer tone of voice.

    "No, it scares me." I stared out the window to the side, mostly at his reflection in it.

    "Does me driving scare you?" His head titled and he glanced at me softly.

    "No, just the thought of me doing it. It gives me anxiety."

    He rolled his head on his neck. "Well I used to have anxiety about a lot of things too, and I still do. I just..."

    "Smoke away all your problems?" It came out nicer than I intended actually. "Depend on something outside of yourself in order to function?"

    "Okay I see your point. But I don't have money for therapy or actually medication."

    I remained silent, because neither did I, but you didn't see me going out there and getting high. I would never do that, because I had to be in control of myself. There's nothing else in my life that's truly mine like I am. I can't and I won't depend on anything else. I know that seems harsh and I could just let Dylan do what he wants with his body (because I did not control that) but it hit home for me. All because of my stupid color sorting and how I let it take over me. If I could sort people then I knew them. I had a set dialogue of how to deal with people of different colors. When they went and changed, it was a rug being ripped out from under my feet, because it felt wrong and I was left not knowing what to do. It left you with a nasty combination of... violent colors. I can't deal with that, not with Dylan.

    "Let's change the topic." Dylan sighed. "I don't want to make you upset, trust me."

    "Me neither." I admitted.

    "So... I mean you know a lot about me and I know a bunch about you but tell me something I don't know." He offered.

    "Okay... I like to draw."

    "Oh yeah! Tell me about that."

    I smiled a little uneasily. This was good, I liked talking about this. "Um... I like to do still lifes, but with subject matter that... says more the longer you look. I don't know how much you saw when you went snooping around my sketchbook-"

    "All of it. Again, I'm so sorry."

    "It's fine." I shrugged it off, we were close enough now that I didn't care too much anymore.

    "Can you tell me about the bird one?" He asked. "With the face?"

    I was confused at first because I had drawn a lot of birds but one he said face it all snapped into place. I reached into the back and pulled out my sketch book and flipped through until I found the one I thought he was describing.

    "Yeah that's the one." Dylan confirmed, leaning over so he could get a second look.

    "Keep your eyes on the road, dork." I chuckled.

    It was a self-portrait actually, but there a bird perched where any of my distinguishable features were. So, it was me but it wasn't me.

    "Hang on, is that you?" He leaned back over.

    "Dylan you're going to crash this car I swear to God." I huffed. "But yeah it is. It's kind of trans thing. You know how you know me but you don't really know me."

    "Holy cow, has anyone ever told you how amazing you are?" He turned a little red. "At drawing I mean?"

    I shrugged, blushing from the praise. "I don't really show it off, uh... not too many people actually know."

    Dylan suddenly snapped his fingers. "You were the boy who won that art contest two years but you never came to collect the prize or something."

    I cringed as the memories came flooding back. "Oh God, don't make me remember."

    "Why not? It was so! Good!" He bounced on the steering wheel with every syllable.

    I leaned into the chair and became three inches shorter from the praise. "It wasn't that I thought I was bad it's just... I did something kind of stupid. You could enter anonymously so I did and I said that I was male... but I didn't think about what would happen if I actually won. Which is what happened so I got pretty mortified."

    Dylan still had a wishful look on his face. "Man, what a loss. You can go big with this Att, definitely."

    "You think so?" I glanced down at my knuckles, not really believing what he was saying.

    "I know so." He reached over to pat my shoulder.

    That left me pretty bewildered. I hadn't really received positive feed-back on anything I had drawn before. Not to mention this is the longest I had ever gone without hearing my deadname. It was hard to describe how happy that made me. I was finally just Atticus, and Atticus I would stay.